@brownsfan Thanks so much for the information... super useful. Will probably also demo a Pass XA-25, that's at least easy to get in the room for a 30 day demo and I'd love to be able to just leave the stereo on all day without concern for tube life. |
That's good to hear Ralph, thanks. |
@tomic601 Great news. Thanks. |
@tomic601 Thanks for the heads up. I sent an e-mail yesterday and just got my invoice today. Can’t go wrong with a 45-day 100% refund trial period. Very curious to hear how they compare.
And @brownsfan I do happen to have a pair of old smoked glass RCA VT-231s so hopefully they help the M60’s play nicely in the system. |
@brownsfan btw, any word on which of those 6SN7s are most critical? I think I have enough pairs of decent ones to replace the stock drivers, but only one pair of those smoked glass RCAs. |
@atmasphere Thanks so much for the information Ralph. Given that the amps were local and came with a 45-day return period, I didn't even investigate what version of Mk3s they were. Definitely the more recent wide chassis version though.
@brownsfan And very curious to hear them in comparison to the Franks. Upon getting my PREs out of storage after living away for a year, I've been limping them along with poor cabling due to the separate binding posts for the subs and head units. Finally got new cables (I built them from the Dueland WE replica wire) and everything is sounding much better with the Franks. Will be an interesting shootout. |
@atmasphere Also, if I'm reading your post correctly, that means that my RCA 6SN7GT VT-231s won't actually work in the amp. Right? I don't think I actually have any GTA or Bs, unfortunately. |
@atmasphere Thanks so much Ralph. Given the proximity (on my daily commute route) and 45 day trial period, I honestly just bought the amps without even finding out which version they are. And now they've got the ad down, so I can't check. My visual memory is that they are are not the long chassis, but I'll find out tomorrow. Very interested to hear.
@brownsfan Also, I had been limping around with some old cables on my PREs due to the need for bi-wiring the bass & midrange units and finally got some proper cables in the system... it has greatly improved the situation, so it'll be a good shootout between the Franks and the M-60s. |
Thanks again for all the input folks. Will be very curious to find out how it shakes out... I pick up the amps tomorrow, so I should know more by the end of the weekend. |
I've now gotten a good demo with the M-60 (it came with a nice set of
VT-321s, including RCA smoked glass and Ken-Rads). I believe it
improved on the Frankensteins in two dimensions: 1) bass definition
& quantity, and 2) "cleanliness," the sound was super clean and I
could tell there was very little distortion in the signal.
Unfortunately, these improvements also came with a cost, in that I lost a
degree of realness/naturalness. There was less texture or color to the
sound than through the Frankensteins. I wish I could just marry the
two amplifiers to get the best of both worlds, but in the end decided
that bass was less important than realness, and will be sticking with
the Frankensteins.
At this point I'm starting to lean towards just keeping the Franksteins
and dealing with the slightly reduced bass output. I got new cables
(constructed from the 16ga Duelund WE replica wire) a couple weeks ago
and that has really improved the bass situation as well. Now that they
are broken in, the Franksteins do not really sound lean at all. Due to
some unfortunate life situations I had been limping along with a
combination of old budget MIT cables (that I'd also had to repair myself
after a connector broke off) and anti-cables and it is now clear that
they were actively preventing me from hearing the bass content the
Franks/PRE combination was capable of.
In any case, I am growing more and more impressed with the
Frankensteins. They're still in the system despite bringing in both the
M-60s and the Lyngdorf TDAI-3400. I may also try the Pass XA-25, but
do not really anticipate them beating out the Franks given what I've
heard over the past few weeks. I may just decide to invest in getting
as much as possible out of the Franks by upgrading power cables
and installing Dueland capacitors.
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@atmasphere Thanks for the information Ralph. Fortunately I was running them with my Duelund speaker cables and Ocellia interconnects. I’ll hook them up to my little desktop speakers and let them play for a couple days and then give them another shot before returning.
@brownsfan And I have the EML XLS in my Franks. I used to also have Mullards as my rectifiers, but unfortunately my tubes went bad. I replaced them with standard NOS RCA 54Us. Will probably give the Mullards another (3rd) shot at some point in the future. As for caps, the PREs only have one capacitor (and two induction coils) in the crossover. Isreal says its a Mundorf. I’ve seen in there and it’s wrapped so I can’t confirm whether that’s true. |
@brownsfan Actually there aren't any caps or resistors on either the woofers or midrange. Only that one cap attached to the tweeter.
From Coincident: "The signal path contains only one capacitor (Mundorf – The most transparent cap for the purpose) and two inductors (proprietary 10 AWG OFC Litz - one for the midrange and one for the bass). That is it." Due to a shipping nightmare, I've been forced to look inside my speakers to find out what got damaged (before eventually shipping to Isreal for a full repair) and can confirm that that's true... |
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Well, I left the M-60s on for about a week and then compared again to my my Franks. As Ralph had intuited, they did improve and narrow the gap between the two amps. Once again, I was impressed by the bass control and grainless sound. As before, however, the Frankensteins performed better on 3-dimensional sound and naturalness of voices and instruments. I wish I could just magically combine the two amps, but in the end decided to return the M-60s to The Music Room.
@tomic601 I'll probably be taking them up to Broomfield next Wednesday. For other potential buyers, they do come with VT-231 Ken Rads and RCA smoked glass tubes I think the 6SN7GTBs are Sylvanias. They should really advertise that in the ad... |
@atmasphere I never found out from TMR. They had the 6sn7s in the 2x2 configuration, but had rounded edges on the power supply cover.
Would love to hear a fully updated version at some point in the future, but only have funds for the units themselves at this point. |
@atmasphere Interesting. I do believe there is at least one bad tube in the amp. I had a channel go out and was able to flip which channel it was by switching out the tube complement. I got a new set of 4 output tubes from TMR and rectified the problem, but did not consider switching out all the tubes. I’ll see if they have a full extra set before returning... |
@atmasphere Unfortunately The Music Room wouldn't provide any extra tubes... they do have a tube tester, but stated: "while we can test the tubes, that may not really give you the information you are looking for, we can test to see if it is working, and get some idea of the condition but this won't tell how it sounds or how much use they have had. In addition, this would also take quite a bit of time to test that number of tubes." They then offered to put in an order for a new set of tubes if I wanted to pay...
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@brownsfan & @atmasphere great, thanks for the information. I'll do some checking, swap out some of the 6sn7s for some nos ones I've got around, and do some more listening tonight. |
@phantom_av Unfortunately it's been too long for me to give any reliable information.
I've transitioned to simple source follower amplification (first watt f4 mono-blocks, only adding current to the signal) and focus on getting the warmth from my preamp (Don Sachs 6sn7).
That combination is remarkably beautiful with great tonality and an amazingly holographic soundstage. |
